{"id":69,"date":"2013-01-16T19:26:10","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T19:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=69"},"modified":"2013-01-16T19:26:10","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T19:26:10","slug":"sci-tech-carbon-nanotube-fiber-in-textile-thread-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=69","title":{"rendered":"Sci-Tech: Carbon nanotube fiber in textile thread form"},"content":{"rendered":"

A multi-national team led by a group at Rice University have made “strands of carbon nanotube fibers that look and feel like textile thread”: New nanotech fiber: Robust handling, shocking performance – Rice University<\/a> (via Transterrestrial Musings<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Rice University\u2019s latest nanotechnology breakthrough was more than 10 years in the making, but it still came with a shock. Scientists from Rice, the Dutch firm Teijin Aramid, the U.S. Air Force and Israel\u2019s Technion Institute this week unveiled a new carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber that looks and acts like textile thread and conducts electricity and heat like a metal wire. In this week\u2019s issue of Science, the researchers describe<\/a> an industrially scalable process for making the threadlike fibers, which outperform commercially available high-performance materials in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finally have a nanotube fiber with properties that don\u2019t exist in any other material,\u201d said lead researcher Matteo Pasquali, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and chemistry at Rice. \u201cIt looks like black cotton thread but behaves like both metal wires and strong carbon fibers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research team includes academic, government and industrial scientists from Rice; Teijin Aramid\u2019s headquarters in Arnhem, the Netherlands; the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel; and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Dayton, Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new CNT fibers have a thermal conductivity approaching that of the best graphite fibers but with 10 times greater electrical conductivity,\u201d said study co-author Marcin Otto, business development manager at Teijin Aramid. \u201cGraphite fibers are also brittle, while the new CNT fibers are as flexible and tough as a textile thread. We expect this combination of properties will lead to new products with unique capabilities for the aerospace, automotive, medical and smart-clothing markets.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n